Discussion of the Related Art
Recently, technological developments of mobile communication devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) and the like, provide character information, image information, games and the like for a user in addition to communicating voice information. More recently, a mobile communication terminal is provided with audio playback functionality for playing audio files, such as MP3 files and the like, and a digital camera function for capturing digital photos and videos. Hence, the scope of usage of the mobile communication terminal is expanding to become a necessity of life.
Furthermore, this expansion has resulted in a smart card that may be integrated into or detachably connected to a mobile communication terminal to functionally converge use of the smart card and the mobile communication terminal so as to eliminate the need for a separate, plastic smart card.
Referring to FIG. 1, a related art commerce-phone 1 illustrates integration of a smart cart and a mobile communication terminal. As shown, a smart card 3 is loaded in a card-loading socket 2 disposed on a rear side of a body 1 of a mobile communication terminal. The smart card stores user authentication information such as credit card particulars, passbook information, and the like; thus, the commerce-phone may transact business having financial associations and act as an electronic passbook for transactions, such as account inquiries, money wiring, cash-outs, check inquiries and the like. Moreover, the commerce phone may provide additional functionality such as acting as a transportation or credit card. Moreover, by applying a communication module, such as an infrared data transmission sensor and module to the commerce-phone, a smart card payment may be performed via a wireless communication link.
The integration of the smart card and mobile communication terminal allows the smart card to act as a subscriber identity module to provide a roaming service for the mobile communication terminal. Smart cards come in many varieties. Some examples of a smart card include a SIM (subscriber identity module) card, USIM (universal subscriber identity module) card, UIM (user identity module) card, RUIM (removable user identity module) card, etc.
With increased functionality, the mobile communication terminal requires increase storage capacity. For instance, in case of a mobile phone provided with a digital camera that stores images and/or provides MP3 player functionality, mobile phones need additional memory capacity to the intrinsic storage capacity to store photograph data and MP3 files.
Yet, if a high capacity memory is built into a body of a mobile communication terminal to store a high volume of data, the price of the terminal is increased. However, a terminal without this increased memory capacity would provide little use to a user with an increased functionality mobile terminal.
Instead of providing a built-in, high-capacity memory in a mobile communication terminal 7, a memory card-loading socket 4, as shown in FIG. 1, is separately provided to a body 1 of the related art mobile communication terminal 7. Hence, a memory card 5 may be detachably attached according to a user's requirements.
There are various types of memory cards. One type of memory card employs flash memory. For instance, some examples of flash memory cards include a secure digital (SD) card, memory stick (MS) card, smart media card (SMC), compact flash card (CFC), multimedia card (MMC), etc.
In accordance with expanding and diversifying functions of the related art mobile communication terminal, a smart card-loading socket may be provided for attachment/detachment of various smart cards. In addition, a memory card-loading socket may be provided for attachment/detachment of a memory card. In these related art mobile terminals, a user loads a card fit for a specific purpose in the corresponding card-loading socket.
If two separate card-loading sockets, e.g. a smart card socket and a memory card socket are provided to one mobile communication terminal, this design configuration may produce a non-compact, and non-miniaturized mobile communication terminal. Furthermore, having two separate card-loading sockets may increase the manufacturing cost for terminal production.
Furthermore, if the related art terminal only provides one socket, only one of the smart card or the memory card may be loaded. Thus, the functionality of the terminal may suffer if it is required that both the smart card and memory card be simultaneously loaded.